EMERGING THREAT ASSESSMENTGLOBAL STRIKE MEDIA.COM NORTH AMERICA

Michael Auslin writes: Where the Korean peninsula is concerned, America’s national security policy stands at a crossroads. Its commitment to Seoul cannot simply be asserted as an ordinary foreign policy, or upheld solely on the account of tradition. Policymakers will have to convince the American public why they should be put at risk, if their involvement in the intra-Korean dispute is what puts them in that position. – The Atlantic

Suicide bombers killed nine people and wounded 13 others in multiple blasts in northeast Nigeria's Maiduguri, police said on Monday, the latest in a spate of attacks in the city worst hit by the Islamist militant Boko Haram insurgency. - Reuters

Seth Cropsey writes: The U.S. does not seek a return to hostilities on the Korean Peninsula. But with each new missile and nuclear device test, and with each new demonstration of savage intent, Pyongyang increases the chances for a resumption of hostilities. Better to deter than be forced into a fight. A punishing response would deter where negotiations merely raise additional questions about our will. Strong action would also be an appropriate response to North Korea’s murder of an innocent American. – Real Clear Defense

The Tunisian prime minister has embarked on a sweeping crackdown against organized crime, arresting nearly a dozen mafia bosses and smuggling barons in recent weeks in an effort to stamp out what has become a nearly existential threat to the young democracy. – New York TimesPresident Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt ratified an agreement on Saturday that cedes sovereignty over two uninhabited Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, brushing off widespread public criticism of the deal in Egypt. - ReutersEast Libyan forces said they had gained control on Saturday over one of two remaining districts of Benghazi where they faced armed resistance. - Reuters

Pentagon officials are themselves concerned that shifting to a military-heavy presence in Africa will hurt American interests in the long term by failing to stimulate development. An absence of schools and jobs, they say, creates more openings for militant groups. – New York Times

President Jacob Zuma is facing a growing challenge to his eight-year rule, with calls for impeachment growing as onetime supporters desert him and a stash of leaked emails raises fresh doubts he will be able to serve out the final two years of his current term. – Washington Times

Putin's Black Arms By David Hursey, RealClearDefense: “Russia is pursuing a multilateral approach beyond the weaponization of narratives into the realm of black arms pass-through, cultivating puppets like Zeman, mastering areas of NATO interests (realigning the Middle East via Syria, Iran) and challenging every convention in Ukraine. For these reasons, the U.S. must assist and counter these active measures into NATO.”

Because Beijing lacks the hard power of global military strength and the soft power to shape other nation’s attitudes through its economic diversity, one of China’s leading diplomatic scholars said it is not now in China’s interest as a rising power to try and take over the United States’ role in the world in maintaining international order. – USNI News

Philippines, terror grows: As President Rodrigo Duterte weighs the costs of Islamic State’s devastation of Marawi City, another of its affiliated groups has launched an assault in nearby North Cotabato. Jason Castaneda reports that, as fighting in Marawi continues, it is unclear how many Islamic State-linked fighters have escaped to other parts of the Philippines and the North Cotabato assault has so far seen attacks on homes and a school and hostages have been taken. READ THE STORY HERE

The top United Nations human rights official on Tuesday accused a militia linked to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo of atrocities, including mass killings, pregnant women cut open and infants hacked with machetes. – New York TimesThe killings reflect the unraveling of a complex network of power trading and patronage, backed by amateur fighters unchecked by the official security apparatus, that has helped secure Mr. Kabila’s rule for the past 16 years. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)The Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo has accused security forces and local militias of killing almost 3,400 people and destroying 20 villages in the central Kasai region. – Financial TimesA change of tone in Angola's relationship with longtime ally Congo has left Congolese President Joseph Kabila more isolated than ever as he clings to power in his vast central African country. - ReutersNigerian refugees who fled Islamist militants are returning from Cameroon into a country that is still not equipped to support them, and they risk creating a new humanitarian crisis, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said on Wednesday. - Reuters

Iran has increased production and testing of ballistic missiles since the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. while playing permanent host to scientists from North Korea, which has the know-how to build and launch atomic weapons, a leading Iranian opposition group said Tuesday. – Washington Times

Tehran’s much-heralded ballistic missile strike against Islamic State targets in Syria came up short, with most of the Iranian missiles either missing their marks inside the terror group’s haven in Deir-e-Zour, or missing Syria altogether and landing inside Iraqi territory. – Washington Times

Report: This paper examines the evolution from a hub-and-spokes alliance system in Asia toward a growing network of intra-Asian security ties, and then explores alternative regional network models. While a number of countries, including India and Singapore, represent important nodes in such a network, this report focuses on Japan and Australia as two natural hubs. – Center for a New American Security

North Korea’s Real Strategy By Christopher R. Hill, The Strategist (ASPI): “North Korea’s appetite for nuclear weapons is rooted more in aggression than pragmatism. North Korea seeks nothing less than to decouple the United States from its South Korean partner—a split that would enable the reunification of the Korean Peninsula on Kim’s terms. In other words, North Korea does not want only to defend itself; it wants to set the stage for an invasion of its own.

China’s submarine buildup: The increasing size of the People’s Liberation Army Navy fleet of surface vessels captures most international attention, based on the sheer numbers and advanced weapons on an array of new warships. But, writes Bill Gertz, Chinese development of modern and increasingly quiet submarines poses one of the more serious strategic challenges for the United States and, indeed, any other nation concerned about Beijing’s growing hegemony in Asia. READ THE STORY HERE

Zalmay Khalilzad writes: A congagement strategy would provide the flexibility to adjust the balance between engagement and containment, depending on the state of Chinese capabilities, objectives, policies and actions. Chinese cooperation on security and economic issues would invite more engagement. Conversely, inadequate cooperation on, say, North Korea, aggressiveness in the South China Sea and bellicosity on Taiwan would trigger a tilt toward containment. – The National Interest

Two U.S. supersonic bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula while a guided-missile destroyer visited a southern island Tuesday in the latest shows of force against a defiant North Korea. – Stars and StripesNorth Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is reportedly so terrified of being targeted for assassination that he travels incognito inside the Hermit Kingdom, and there’s growing evidence his paranoia may be well-founded. – Fox NewsSen. John McCain said Monday night that Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student detained by North Korea for more than a year, was "murdered by the Kim Jong-un regime." – Washington ExaminerChristian Caryl writes: My heart goes out to Warmbier’s family. Neither he nor they deserved any of this. But at least — miserable consolation that it is — he will be remembered. The same cannot be said for the legions of North Koreans who populate their country’s mass graves, faceless and forgotten. As we mourn the fate of this poor American, let’s spare a thought for them as well. – Washington Post

Four gunmen stormed a camping resort outside Mali’s capital on Sunday, killing two people before escaping in a shootout with soldiers from an antiterrorism unit, a security ministry official said. – New York TimesMalian security forces have killed five militants involved in an attack on a luxury resort popular with Western expatriates outside Mali's capital Bamako, the security minister said on Monday. - ReutersFive female suicide bombers killed 12 people and wounded 11 in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, birthplace of the Islamist militant Boko Haram insurgency, police said on Monday. - Reuters

Indian Ocean tensions: A potential Cold War in the Indian Ocean could pit an informal alliance of the US, India, Australia and Japan against a China that, for the first time in modern history, is making inroads into the region. Bertil Lintnerwrites that more than 60% of the world’s oil shipments pass through the ocean as does 70% of all container traffic and while tensions are not yet as high as in the hotly contested South China Sea, potential for conflict is unmistakably rising. READ THE STORY HERE

Commentary Magazine: How the West is blind to ideologyJonathan Foreman writes: The failure to understand the role of ideology is one of imagination as well as education. Very few of those who make government policy or write about home-grown terrorism seem able to escape the limitations of what used to be called “bourgeois” experience. They assume that anyone willing to become an Islamist terrorist must perforce be materially deprived, or traumatized by the experience of prejudice, or provoked to murderous fury by oppression abroad…Their understanding is an understanding only of themselves, not of the people who want to kill them. - Commentary

Largely immune to the region’s volatility thanks to its commercial pragmatism and long-term vision, Beijing is viewed as a key strategic partner and source of money in capitals from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. And with the region still adjusting to President Trump’s more assertive foreign policy, analysts say the region will increasingly look to the east rather than the north for crucial infrastructure funding. – Washington TimesThe Trump administration likely will scale back policy changes it believes have benefited the Cuban government while preserving some of the increased commercial activity that has begun after former President Barack Obama moved to normalize U.S.-Cuban ties, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)Four years after Chávez’s death, the movement he founded is splintering, with current and former government officials, as well as residents of poor neighborhoods that were once adamantly pro-government, turning on his successor, Nicolás Maduro. – Washington PostAs Colombia’s leftist rebel movement begins making its transition to a political party, a crucial question hangs over the process: how much money is it hiding? – Associated PressColombia's Marxist FARC rebel group on Tuesday all but concluded handing over another 30 percent of its weaponry to the United Nations, part of a peace deal signed with the government to end more than 52 years of war. - ReutersJose Cardenas writes: Sanctions, of course, are no magic bullet. But targeted sanctions against corrupt Venezuelan officials, in concert with aggressive multilateral diplomacy, can serve to further delegitimize the Maduro regime before the Venezuelan people and international public opinion, as well as send a signal to nationalists in the Venezuelan military that they are no longer defending the Venezuelan constitution but the criminal interests of a drug-trafficking conspiracy. – National Review OnlineEmanuele Ottolenghi writes: The convergence of Iran-sponsored radical Islam with transnational organized crime in Latin America is a serious threat to the national security of the United States, especially in the tri-border area, or TBA, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge. – The Hill

Armed men stormed the Kangbayi prison on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, freeing more than 900 inmates, most of them charged with taking part in mass killings in the country’s restive northeast. – New York Times

From 2013 to 2015, violence gripped the Central African Republic as mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized the government, triggering bloody reprisals by Christian “anti-Balaka” militias. As many as 6,000 people died in one of the world’s bloodiest sectarian conflicts….Today, however, traders trek to and from the capital carrying goods. A new water system is up and running. Refugee camps that once housed more than 415,000 people, according to the United Nations, are closing as their inhabitants return home. – Washington Times

India’s ISIS lessons: The majority of Islamist extremists in Europe are the offspring of Muslims who settled in European countries and they are often confused about their cultural identity. Seema Sengupta writes that Europe could learn from India’s holistic approach to countering radicalization that, by shifting the onus on to elders and religious leaders, has reduced young Muslim’s vulnerability to recruitment and radicalization. READ THE STORY HERE

Uyghur crackdown continues: In the latest tightening of the screws on China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region, authorities have banned the use of several baby names, including Muhammad, Haji, Islam and Imam. Ben Hillmanreports that authorities have said the naming regulations are designed to curtail “religious fervor” but the ruling also targets Uyghur nationalism, which is often conflated with Islamic extremism in China. READ THE STORY HERE

The events surrounding the capture of Abu Khattala, accused as the mastermind of the lethal attacks in Benghazi that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, are emerging with rare detail in testimony and records in an ongoing federal court case in Washington. – Washington Post

Emily Estelle writes: A Libyan militia released Saif al Islam al Qaddafi, the heir apparent of deceased Libyan dictator Muammar al Qaddafi, on June 9. The freeing of the younger Qaddafi reflects the increasing mobilization of members of the former Qaddafi regime within the ongoing struggle for control of Libya. Their reactivation, accompanied by the rise of a would-be strongman, gives weight to fears that former elements of the Qaddafi regime seek to regain their influence in the country. This feared return of the ancien régime will embolden a Salafi-jihadi insurgency inside of Libya and derail efforts to establish the inclusive and responsive governance required for lasting peace. – AEI’s Critical Threats

PHILIPPINES: Philippines Becoming Battleground in Global Fight Against Extremism ByWill Edwards, The Cipher Brief: “Last week, General Eduardo Ano, the Philippines Chief of Staff, said he hoped that the city of Marawi would be liberated from Islamist militants before June 12, the country’s Independence Day. The deadline has come and gone, but the fighting continues. Islamist militants still hold about a fifth of the city of Marawi. Fighters from an ISIS-affiliated coalition formed from the Abu-Sayyaf and Maute groups, who seized portions of the city May 23, have dug in and are now repelling sustained air and ground assaults by Philippine forces.” ​

Indonesian General Gatot Nurmantyo said the Islamic State has sleeper cells in almost every province of the country. He also worried Monday that these terrorists “can easily join up with other radical cells.” – Washington Times

U.S. troops are on the ground near Marawi City in the southern Philippines, but are not involved in fighting Islamist militants who have held parts of the city for more than three weeks, a Philippines military spokesman said on Wednesday. - ReutersMilitants, pirates, drug traffickers, gun runners - the waters between Borneo and the southern Philippines have them all, but as an Islamic State faction burst on the scene in recent weeks, this corner of Southeast Asia plumbed new levels of insecurity. - Reuters

ISIS-Manila calls Washington: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had indicated he was going to sever strategic ties with Washington in favor of stronger military relations with Beijing and Moscow. Richard Javad Heydarian reports that Islamic State’s bid to gain a foothold in the Philippines has changed things and top US security officials are again confident in the long-term trajectory of America’s alliance with the Philippines. READ THE STORY HERE